Amidst the Monday market turmoil in the wake of the release of DeepSeek – an innovative Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) model – Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) investors could wake up to some good news.
Specifically, Needham’s Laura Martin confirmed she still estimated GOOGL shares are a ‘buy’ while boosting the 12-month price target from $210 to $225 – a full 14.75% above the press time price of $196.07.
While Needham noted the continued market dominance of Google’s core business, the strength of the cloud segment appeared to be the trigger for the revision as the analyst, at the same time, revised the revenue estimate by 1% to $96.4B, indicating confidence in a 12% year-over-year (YoY) growth.
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Google stock outlook for 2025 remains mixed despite overall ‘buy’ rating
Despite the turbulence, Alphabet has been commanding significant – if not overwhelming – expert optimism since the start of 2025. Out of the 11 recorded price target revisions since January 1, it received as many as 6 ‘buy’ ratings.
Still, it is worth pointing out that the first month of the year featured no upgrades, with the overwhelming share of reassessments being either from ‘buy’ to ‘buy’ or from ‘neutral’ to ‘neutral.’
Simultaneously, GOOGL stock received a single downgrade in 2025 on January 2 from Citizens JMP’s Andrew Boon,e who stopped regarding it as a ‘strong buy,’ instead opting for ‘hold.’
Elsewhere, the highest price target assigned in the first month of the year came from Wolfe Research on January 3 – $230 – and the lowest from Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) on January 13 – $190.
Silicon Valley stock hit hard by new Chinese AI model
While Alphabet stock’s overall performance remains strong, as the technology giant is 3.56% in the green year-to-date (YTD) and 27.71% in the last 12 months, it didn’t completely evade the impact of the release of China’s DeepSeek.
Specifically, the new AI platform caused much turmoil in Silicon Valley, leading to Google shares finding themselves 1.63% in the red on Monday morning.
Still, such a downturn hardly compares to the impact on Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) or Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD), as the former dropped 12.88% and the latter 4.61%.
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